Paper short abstract:

Sponsorized by MIUR, University of Naples "L'Orientale" in 2015, by exploiting the potential of Moodle open-source platform, worked out a path full of activities which allowed students to consolidate what they learned in their classes, in a dynamic and stimulating way. Results will be discussed.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015 MIUR (Ministry of Education, Universities and Research) sponsorized a three-year project (to be financed from year to year, on the basis of the achieved results) in order to promote the development of teaching multimedia aids, which can be used in University language courses. Ministerial guidelines were rather vague so that each chair interpreted them freely.

At University of Naples "L'Orientale", the Japanese chair, by fully exploiting the potential of Moodle open-source platform, worked out a path full of activities which allowed students to consolidate what they learned in their classes, in a dynamic and stimulating way.

The branched out teaching equipment offered during academic year 2015/2016 (interactive exercises, videos about grammar, dictations, listening etc.) was worked out on the chosen textbook path, that is the Italian version of Japanese for College Students by ICU, and was assigned to first-year students.

Most exercises were created with HotPotatoes programme and then inserted into the virtual class. The programme compatibility with Moodle platform allowed the creation of an "auditor register", thanks to which it was possible to collect automatedly a huge amount of data. In fact each student's activities were recorded and inserted into a common database, enabling the comparison between the activities carried out during the academic year and the written examinations results.

During the course the students were also given an online tutoring, thanks to which they could ask grammar questions to their Italian professor and present their writing exercises to their mother tongue professor.

At the end of the course the students were asked to fill out a questionnaire so as to pinpoint the strenghts and the weaknesses of the project.

The collected data are interesting indeed and can be used as the starting point for further reflection.